Are degree apprentices exempt from council tax?

Usually not. The full exemption applies to households where everyone is a full-time student. A degree apprentice is an employee studying part-time, so the household is normally liable. A separate apprentice disregard exists but has a low earnings threshold that most degree apprentices exceed.

What is the apprentice disregard?

It removes you from the count of adults in a property for council tax purposes. To qualify you must be training toward a recognised qualification and be paid no more than a set weekly amount — long set at £195 a week in England. Most degree apprenticeship salaries are well above that, so it rarely applies to Level 6 and Level 7 apprentices.

Who pays if I live in a house share?

It depends on the tenancy. If everyone signed one joint tenancy, all the tenants are jointly liable and it is usually split between you. If you each have your own separate agreement for your own room, the landlord is normally the liable person and the cost is built into your rent — check which you have before you budget.

Can I get a discount if I live alone?

Yes. The single person discount takes 25% off the bill for any household with only one adult counted, and it applies to apprentices the same as anyone else. You have to apply for it — councils do not add it automatically.

Do apprentices pay council tax?

Full-time students do not pay council tax. It is one of the better-known perks of going to university, and it is worth well over a thousand pounds a year in most of the country.

Degree apprentices are not full-time students, and the exemption follows student status rather than whether you happen to be studying for a degree. This is the single most common budgeting mistake people make when they move out for an apprenticeship.

The two things people confuse

There are two separate rules and they do very different things.

1. The full-time student exemption

A property where every occupant is a full-time student is exempt from council tax altogether. “Full-time” has a specific meaning here — broadly a course lasting at least one academic year that requires at least 21 hours of study a week.

A degree apprentice studies part-time alongside a full-time job. You will not normally meet that definition, and your university enrolment letter will say part-time. So this exemption does not apply to you.

2. The apprentice disregard

Separately, there is a disregard specifically for apprentices. Being disregarded means you are not counted as an adult when the council works out how many adults live in the property — which can bring a two-adult household down to the 25% single-person discount, or a single occupant down further.

To qualify you must be:

employed to learn a trade, profession or vocation, and
undertaking training leading to a recognised qualification, and
paid no more than £195 a week — a threshold in England that has been at that level for a long time.

This is where degree apprentices fall out

£195 a week is about £10,140 a year. A typical Level 6 degree apprenticeship pays somewhere between £20,000 and £28,000, which is roughly £385 to £540 a week. If you are on anything like a normal degree apprenticeship salary, you will not qualify for the disregard, and you should budget for a full council tax bill.

The disregard is genuinely useful for Level 2 and Level 3 apprentices on lower wages, especially in a first year on the apprentice minimum wage. It is much less relevant at Level 6 and 7. Check your own weekly gross pay against the threshold rather than assuming either way, and confirm the current figure with your council — it is set in regulations that can be updated.

What you should actually claim

Single person discount — 25%. If you are the only adult counted in the property. You must apply; it is never applied automatically.
Council Tax Reduction. A means-tested scheme run separately by every council, for people on low incomes. Worth a check on a first-year apprentice wage, particularly outside London where thresholds bite sooner.
Mixed household disregards. If you live with full-time students, they are disregarded even though you are not. A property with one apprentice and two students is treated as having one countable adult, which means a 25% discount rather than a full bill.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Council tax is devolved. Scotland and Wales run their own schemes with their own discounts and their own reduction rules, and the apprentice provisions are not identical to England's.

Northern Ireland does not have council tax at all — it uses domestic rates instead, which are billed differently and have their own relief schemes. If you are moving to Belfast, none of the above applies in the same form.

Before you sign a tenancy

Ask whether council tax is included in the rent. In a room-by-room let it often is; on a joint tenancy it usually is not.
Find the band and the actual annual charge for that specific address on the council's website. Bills vary enormously between councils for identical properties.
Divide by twelve and add it to your monthly figure before you decide the place is affordable. Our affordability calculator includes a line for it.
Tell the council when you move in. Backdated bills arriving six months later are much harder to absorb than a monthly direct debit.

Worth saying plainly

Thresholds, bands and reduction schemes change, and every council runs its own. Treat this page as the shape of the rules and your own council's website as the authority. GOV.UK's council tax pages will point you to the right one.